Every theater production involves a great amount of behind-the-scenes work. Will Maresco ’19 is a theater major with minors in digital arts and engineering, who finds his passion in lighting, sound and stage design. He designs for many student productions with his skilled and wide-ranging talents.

Monik Walters ’19 wears many hats. As Student Assembly president, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at Dartmouth, leader of the Dartmouth Alliance for Children of Color, Hopkins Center curatorial fellow, a member of Ujima and choreographer for D-Step, Walters has made an impact on various spaces on campus, especially in the arts.

Aaron Lit ’19, a math modified with economics student from Hong Kong, has a mission to smooth out any wrinkles in your preconceived notions of fashion while also saving marine life. He intends to do this through his social project MiaMira.

Costumes for theater characters reflect their personas and emphasize their individuality. Armando Ortiz Jr. ’19 understands this sentiment exactly. He is a behind-the-scenes costume designer, imagining, creating and perfecting the outfits of many characters.

Owen O’Leary ’19 is taking his acting skills behind the scenes this term as he directs “Tragedy: A Tragedy,” a student production that will perform from Nov. 9 to 11. While O’Leary has performed and assisted with many shows while at Dartmouth, this production will be his first time directing.

A pioneer in the theater department, Will Maresco ’19 deviates from the typical Dartmouth theater major track, finding his passion in stage design. Participating in countless school productions, Maresco has cultivated an expansive repertoire of skills that span from sound design to lighting.

As February approaches, Dartmouth students begin preparations for V-Day, the global movement to end violence against girls and women. Many talented and dedicated students come together during the month of February to support the cause and promote gender equity through V-February, Dartmouth’s version of the global movement. One of these students is Gricelda Ramos ’18, a geography modified with Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean studies major. As a student with passion in both theatrical performance and social issues, Ramos will be directing the V-Feb program. According to Ramos, despite the fact that she is not a theater major, her passion for theater is immeasurable.

There are many people who paint, but there are not many who use emoji as a source of inspiration — Kevin Soraci ’18 is both. A studio art and engineering double major, Soraci has been painting for about seven years. Although he can’t recall how he got started, he remembers instantly falling in love with the sense of calm that painting gives him. For Soraci, painting is a way to engage with our culture conceptually, he said.

Dartmouth’s isolated location and idyllic campus can often feel like a haven from pressing social issues, lulling students and faculty into complacency. Painter, photographer and poet Cecilia Torres ’18 confronts issues of racism and representation in an effort to reach beyond this veil of comfort, using her brush, pencil, camera and words as weapons in the battle to make minorities’ voices heard on campus.

As director of last spring’s student production “What Every Girl Should Know,” president of the all-female a cappella group the Subtleties and actress in “In The Next Room,” “Urinetown” and this fall’s “Cabaret,” performer and playwright Virginia Ogden ’18 has completely immersed herself in the arts at Dartmouth. Ogden spent the past summer as a student at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art as part of the Dartmouth theater foreign study program.

While the performance aspect is often regaled as the climax and culmination of a dancer’s hard work, choreographer and dancer Angie Lee ’17 has a different perspective. Lee emphasizes that dance can be used to examine and explore oneself and that work takes place largely off-stage.

For Lily Citrin ’17, the impulsive need to create has marked her artistic process since childhood. When Citrin was in the fourth grade, she told a teacher that she was going to write a book and received a patronizing reply. This dismissal motivated her to write her first novel — 80 pages long.

Julie Solomon ’17 is an integral member of Dartmouth’s theater department — she is its go-to person for set design, a passion she discovered in high school almost by accident. After not getting a part in her school play, she was invited to work on the set crew instead. It was then that she fell in love with set design and chose to continue pursuing it, excited to build props and even use power tools.

Everyone at Dartmouth excels at something, but it is rare to find a student who manages to surpass expectations in countless different fields. While choosing to major in English with a concentration in creative writing, Alex Lopez ’15 has expanded his time at Dartmouth beyond the traditional academic bounds, pursuing coursework and internships in the fields of sustainability, finance, politics and numerous other areas.

Sara Lindquist ’18 first discovered her love for singing after joining a community girls’ choir. While the group sang, dance and acted, Lindquist realized that she enjoyed the singing component most, especially the storytelling aspect of it.

Rossina Naidoo ’18 combines her passion and talent in visual art with a savvy social media presence — her work has been featured on popular Instagram accounts like Nawden, and one drawing garnered tens of thousands of likes as a result. But there was a point in her life when she thought she would have no choice but to give up on art, which had always been a consistent fixture in her life.

Although Drayton Harvey ’17 was never a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars,” the popular reality show changed the trajectory of his life. When 13-year-old Harvey — then involved with fencing, archery and baseball — first saw the show, it was the spark that ignited what would eventually become a passion for ballroom dancing.